Royal Calkins: Cardinal Mahony should be held responsible

Some have written that when Roger M. Mahony became the priest of the farmworkers, allying himself closely with the United Farmworkers Union, it was an act of great courage. This was in the San Joaquin Valley and many of the biggest Catholic contributors there were growers, including many owners of the vineyards where Cesar Chavez began his organizing.

Others maintain that Mahony was largely posturing. They say that while he was sympathetic to the workers, he mainly was angling to accelerate his rise to the top of the church hierarchy.

Either way, it was a risk. Though he cost the church treasury by enraging much of the church's core membership from Stockton to Bakersfield, he gained the star power that caused many church observers over the years to predict that he might be the first American pope.

Growing up mostly in the valley, I admired Mahony and the handful of priests who openly supported the UFW. Though I later would become seriously disenchanted with the UFW as a union, in those days it was an important and effective social movement. With Mahony's help, in the church and in Sacramento, Chavez and the UFW were responsible for many overdue reforms in the fields. Banishment of the short-handled hoe, the requirement for toilets, fresh water, shade and rest breaks all were the result of legislation that never would have occurred without Chavez and, to some extent, Mahony.

I met him twice and found him to be a calm and calming presence who reminded me of Chavez, who had his own air of spirituality. My admiration for Mahony all those decades ago makes what has become of him hard to reconcile and to accept.

As archbishop of Los Angeles for 25 years, Cardinal Mahony presided over huge regional growth in the church while also presiding over a conspiracy to protect pedophile priests. And he did it not by simply looking the other way. He was a ringleader of a successful effort to hide priests known to have molested many. He thwarted secular efforts to stop the abuse. He turned his back on a multitude of victims.

It took a series of court orders for the public to finally get a look at church records that reveal just how widespread the molestation was and just how hard the church administration fought to evade scrutiny. Officials under Mahony's direction even shielded repeat offenders from therapists who might be obligated to report them.

Cardinal Mahony tried this as an explanation — that despite his master's degree in social work, he had never been trained on the repercussions of sexual abuse. Even if he was a stupid man, it still would be a ridiculous excuse.

I cannot pretend to understand the political and spiritual dynamics that shaped the cardinal's thinking over the decades. I do know, though, that I cannot join the camp that feels he has been punished enough or that a lifetime of good works should give him some sort of immunity from further prosecution either inside or outside the church. No. I join those who urge the church to cut him completely loose, and who urge law enforcement to continue examining his actions with an eye to charging him with any crimes that have not been wiped out by the statutes of limitations. And I urge law enforcement to put at least as much energy into it as Cardinal Mahony put into protecting monsters.